Sessions at SXSW Interactive 2012 about Research

Friday 9th March 2012

Formula One racing represents the pinnacle of motorsport where every intricate detail contributes to the overall success of the car and the team. Safety features, tire design and even organization of pit crews have a far-reaching effect on our everyday lives.

One of the principal advances in technology that Formula One has inspired is the regular use of carbon fiber - famed for its strength-to-weight ratio. Carbon fiber now makes up the whole of Formula One cars' "monocoques" - the shell that safely encloses drivers. Advances from Formula One trickle down into the consumer vehicles we use every day. Anti-lock brakes, improved energy efficiency and aerodynamics all originated in Formula One.

Beyond high-performance advances in the automotive and medical industries, there are also spin-offs of F1 technology that are likely to touch our lives in more subtle ways.

The abandonment of "slicks" - tires without grooves - in Formula One for a decade led to great leaps in tire design that are now seeing application elsewhere. On one hand, F1 tire design has gone on to inspire the manufacture of incredibly effective non-slip boots. On another, the attempts to reduce the amount of rubber in contact with the track has led to the design of fishing line with a star-shaped cross-section, reducing drag on the fishing pole's guides and allowing anglers to cast further.

The sport’s investment in research and development has developed into the space age of the 21st century, impacting many aspects of people’s everyday lives all across the world.

The internet is a never-ending data source. Through it we are able to monitor visitor activity, study traffic patterns, and use these analytics to help guide users in the directions we want. Usability testing gives us behavioral information which can either affirm design decisions or inform necessary changes. Research and analytics go a long way in selling a creative direction to clients who are focused on engaging with their customers and in how marketing dollars will impact their bottom line. But what about a designer's instinct—that moment when a designer just knows what they're building is right? When and how do their years of professional experience, inspirational collections, and life observations become deciding factors? Learn from a panel of design veterans, with experience that ranges from client services to product development, about past experiences and their personal stance on the subject.

Saturday 10th March 2012

The Association of PR Professionals in Mexico (ProPR) groups all PR professionals, consultants and agencies. Every year, ProPR conducts and publishes a research on the local industry. This is the first year that a PR2.0, social media or digital communications research will be included, along with the collaboration of the Social Media Club Mexico. Our intention is to present the digital addendum in SXSW to provide a big picture of how digital communication and social media industry is developing in our country, as well as analyze main challenges and opportunities for the immediate future. This is an excellent opportunity for all PR and digital communications professionals and companies who have presence in Mexico to take a general overview of Mexican industry.

The Brazilian Dream project is a qualitative and quantitative research - the first to promote a view that explores what the 18-24 year-old youth thinks about Brazil, and what they think they can do to impact the country development.

This session will present an overview of the main findings of the research.

It will cover how world and local drivers are affecting the way youngsters think, live and act for their country.

It will provide an understanding of how the perspective they have of the main social institutions is changing and why.

The study reveals who are the young innovators, changemakers, social activists that are already doing something that is meant to change Brazil - how they act, which projects they are involved with.

The output of this 18-month project is rich with insights, quantitative data and inspiration for anyone who wants to go beyond the economic-based visions that have been surrounding the idea of an "emerging country". It helps understand the behaviors that are behind the take-off Brazil's being going through.

Data are the building blocks of information, fueling our algorithmic digital world. But with so much data being produced, how can we process it? Visualization techniques allow users to understand vast amounts of data that we can’t parse. Get up to speed on techniques of data visualization from scientific researchers and scholars working in informatics, computer science, and physics – and see how these tools can help you understand Twitter. And data analysis and visualization isn’t just for science. The digital humanities movement shows us that innovative data practices aren’t just for science anymore. See innovative digital humanities research in data mining and visualization that will have you thinking differently about literature and history. This panel focuses on developments in data visualization strategies but will also covers the basics of data, some major issues with data analysis and data visualization, and prominent theories of visualization.

Sunday 11th March 2012

As consumers get more real-time, marketing’s traditionally slow, phased, methodical approach to researching and reaching consumers doesn’t work any more. Just as software developers have needed to become more agile, so too does the marketer. CMOs and Senior Marketers will share what they are doing and what they WISH they were doing to be more real-time. Technology builders, join us and you will come away with 100 new ideas for technologies that need to exist.

What if we put our collective technical expertise and resources to creating something more impactful than the next incremental addition to Twitter? Developing nations have an untapped potential to become regional hubs for research and development. Ideas are in abundance, but how can we help fuel this drive with essential tools and make them a reality? How can the cloud revolution enable these nations to grow into global think tanks?

In this session, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Winston Damarillo will address the reason he sees the scarcity of computing resources as a matter of national security. The implementation of cloud has the potential to turbo-charge entrepreneurship in developing nations around the world – through allowing aspiring organizations to access high capacity computing power without the need to invest in hardware, software, network, and real-estate space, maximizing scarce energy resources.

The session will include the benefits of the cloud with respect to social development, indigenous innovation and economic growth, as well as the ways that we can leverage our Silicon Valley resources and expertise to change the world in ways that parallel the impact of Facebook and Twitter on our global network.

Monday 12th March 2012

Ten years ago, we had this idea to make a product that'd keep our coffee and chips fresher. We researched, designed, and manufactured it all with sweat equity and many late nights on the Internets. Today people call that being a Maker. Back then we were just trying to make a buck. This talk will share how our product ended up in the Space Shuttle, Antarctica, pantries, and Grandma's looms.

Tuesday 13th March 2012

A recent survey of 17,000 people found that 60% of Americans believe that neighbors are worse today than they were 15 years ago. What role does social media play in this perception of decline? We’ll have perspectives from State Farm, which commissioned the large scale survey across all 50 states; Kelly Weiss, Executive Director of Austin Habitat for Humanity; and Gretchen Rubin, an author whose research has focused on the question of how connectedness affects our happiness – including how ties with neighbors and communities have an impact on our overall wellbeing.